Saturday, November 21, 2009

Merry Fucking Holiday

I don't watch tv, and I work pretty hard at avoiding all the winter holiday commercialism, so, but for this Chicago SunTimes article, I'd never have known about the above commercial for the Gap. Since I don't have to see it a million times, I think it's kind of cute, as far as WesternCiv commercialism based upon exploiting third world laborers, promoting ageism and sexism, turning religion into commerce, and destroying the planet can be cute. (I am, I'm a regular bundle of optimism and joy.) The dancing's not bad, and my first reaction is to think it's cool that they even bothered to mention my religious holiday: are Pagans now a large enough demographic that we're worth including? Or, maybe we're thrown in for shock value; most folks in advertising think that a controversial commercial is great, as it generates even more interest than a "normal" one. So, cool.

But while Ms. Falsani, the religious columnist for the SunTimes, goes out of her way to not get involved in the "war on xmas," she does manage to harsh my ad-induced holiday buzz. While they all occur around the same time of the year, Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa and Winter Solstice hardly carry the same spiritual weight. Oh, really?

I bet you're never going to guess, so I'll go ahead and tell you: the xian holiday carries the most spiritual weight, followed by the other patriarchial, monotheistic, Abrahamic religion, followed by the African Americans, followed by the Pagans. I know, who'd have thought?

Christmas celebrates the miraculous birth of a savior come to redeem the world. Hannukah, while also commemorating a miracle (a one-day supply of oil for a lamp in the temple lasted eight days) and the victory of the Jewish rebellion over the Hellenistic rulers of Jerusalem, it is a minor holiday, not to be compared to the High Holidays of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur or the major festivals, Sukkot and Passover.

Kwanzaa is a nonreligious festival, begun in 1966 and celebrated nearly exclusively in the United States, which celebrates African-American culture and values. Winter Solstice marks the shortest day of the year and the longest night of the year and is for many pagans and neo-pagans the symbolic and spiritual rebirth of the year.

Could her biases be more obvious? Interesting how "pagans" and "neo-pagans" don't get capitalized, isn't it? And does the "religious columnist" for the SunTimes truly not understand that "the miraculous birth of a savior come to redeem the world" is based upon Pagan themes, celebrated at the Winter Solstice? Does she not know that many African Americans churches do celebrate Kwanza, making it, indeed, a religious holiday? Give me a break.

In case you missed the fact that Paganism is not the "spiritual equivalent" of monotheistic religions, Ms. Falsania repeats: While each of these holidays, for lack of a more universally applicable term, is significant to different groups of believers (and nonbelievers, for that matter) they are not spiritual equivalents. OK, I think we get it.

But, she's open-minded, really, she is. Still, I have no problem with all four being mentioned in the same context when we're talking about the things people celebrate this time of year. That's valid and correct. Mighty big of her, isn't it? Well, no, it isn't, as her next few paragraphs prove.

Unless we're meant to be concelebrating Bacchanalia or -- and this is even a stretch -- Mardi Gras, nothing in the Christian, Jewish and pagan traditions or the African-American cultural ideals that Kwanzaa celebrates would encourage the faithful to throw all rules out the window and do whatever feels good, man. Again, with the capitalization problems. Christians get capitalized. Pagans don't. Not spiritually or grammatically equivalent, apparently.

Given the lack of "spiritual equivalence" between the holidays, you'll probably not be surprised to see whose holiday gets an entire paragraph and whose holidays get jumbled together all into one.

Christmas is about selflessness and transformative love, the improbable gift of a divine baby born into straw poverty in order to reconcile the world back to God. We do celebrate Christ's birth by giving something to each other to commemorate that epic, divine gift. But it's not supposed to pivot around the exchange of material goods, and it's definitely not about sweaters and turtlenecks.

Hannukah is about power of perseverance, faith and righteousness to overcome tyranny. It's about a small miracle that changes everything. The seven principles of Kwanzaa are: unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith. Those principles are pretty much the direct opposite of the idea of "do whatever you want." And Solstice is, first and foremost, a natural, communal, Earth-centered event. Nothing about ushering in the death of the old year and the birth of the new says "fleece hoodies" to me.

So some people's holidays are "about" selflessness and transformative love, improbable gifts (but not gifts of improbable hoodies!) of divine babies who are born to "reconcile the world back to God" and some people's holidays are about nothing more than "communal events" (which would surprised my closed circle) that mark the death of the old year and the birth of the new. You know, kind of a communal, Earthy, early New Year's party. Not much spiritual significance, certainly not the "spiritual equivalence" of transformative love, divinity, selflessness, and divinity. And, in case you missed it, babies! And, divinity. All religions are equal, but some are more equal than others.

What's really interesting is that the thrust of the article, to the extent that it has one, is that commercialism and religious holidays don't mix. So the entire discussion of the "spiritual equivalence" of the various holidays is unrelated to, and a distraction from, the main point of the article. Yet, one gets the sense that showing how "unequivalent" some religions are was the point closest to the author's heart. Does this woman not have an editor? (I mean, it's obvious that she lacks a stylebook, but I thought the SunTimes still had editors.)

I have a suggestion for Ms. Falsani. Turn off the tv and go get a Comparative Religion 101 text. Then, read it. And either capitalize the names of all religions or don't capitalize the names of any. Oh, and Merry fucking xmas.

4 comments:

MasterD, damn yankee
said...

Ms. Falsani needs to now that Jesus was NOT born on December 25th, that celebrating Christmas was banned at one time in this country by religious Christians, and that it only became a big deal within the last couple of centuries.

Exactly. The merchants win every time! I admit that I was startled to hear the Winter Solstice mentioned on the ad -- and yes! I'll bet that the creative team thought that would be a bit "radical" and "cool" to say that -- rather than "inclusive" I would LOVE to have heard THAT workplace meeting!

Blessed Yule! Brightest Blessings for Winter Solstice!

Still waiting for a "Yule Decorating" article on Witchvox! And supporting pagan artisans' work on Etsy.com!

I don't have a problem with the non-capitalization of "pagans" (and such). While Judaism and Christianity are religions, paganism is a blanket term for many different religions. If I said, "Americans, French, and other humans", you wouldn't expect "humans" to be capitalized.

This may (or may not) have been intended as a slight, but I would say that it is grammatically and politically correct.

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About Me

I'm a woman, a Witch, a mother, a grandmother, an eco-feminist, a gardener, a reader, a writer, and a priestess of the Great Mother Earth. Hecate appears in the
Homeric Ode to Demeter, which tells of Hades who caught Persophone
"up reluctant on his golden car and bare her away lamenting. . . . But no one, either of the deathless gods or of mortal men, heard her voice, nor yet the olive-trees bearing rich fruit: only tenderhearted Hecate, bright-coiffed, the daughter of Persaeus, heard the girl from her cave . . . ."